NEW YORK  The Sunday before Thanksgiving, the incoming chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee felt compelled to issue a dire warning about a major terrorist strike. In an interview snippet from Meet the Press endlessly recycled on other TV news shows, Alabama Republican Richard Shelby ominously declared, "I think it will be spectacular. Will it be on the order of the World Trade Tower or the Pentagon? I hope not."

What is the rational response to Shelby's alarmist words?

Yes, it is tempting to toss this inflammatory warning on the bonfire along with all the scary color-coded pronouncements from homeland security czar Tom Ridge and Attorney General John Ashcroft. Shelby, like any veteran senator, knows the implicit rules of the Sunday talk shows: If you say something that creates headlines, you are likely to be invited back.

By Monday morning, in fact, Shelby was offering a careful clarification. Appearing on CNN, the senator stressed that "I do not have specific information and I don't think the FBI does at this point." Justifying his hyperbolic comments, Shelby added, "But you have to always watch our backside (in) America."

Anyone privy to secret intelligence briefings must know what it is like to live with fear. Having underestimated the terrorist threat, the intelligence agencies, like any bureaucracy watching its backside, are now presumably overcompensating in the other direction. In a world where America has ruthless enemies, new threat assessments are constantly bubbling to the surface. How do you strike the right balance between unnecessarily fostering fears and encouraging a blithe indifference to real and present dangers?

OK, it is hard to completely avoid a sense of gnawing unease. Osama bin Laden is alive, still plotting and fomenting. We can hope Saddam Hussein will choose the rational course of survival, but it is difficult to be sanguine about the last-ditch plans of a cornered megalomaniac. If you believe the triumphant announcements of the FBI and the Justice Department each time they arrest someone with an Arab name, then America seems to have more terrorist cells than Wal-Marts.

All in all, it makes for a strange Thanksgiving. Unlike a year ago, the memories of Sept. 11 have receded to a mental space halfway between mourning and history. Fourteen blessed months without a major domestic terrorist incident have restored our confidence and quieted fears of personal vulnerability. Carefully hoarded bottles of Cipro are lying at the back of medicine chests, while top-of-the-line gas masks are gathering dust on basement shelves. We are not immune to panic, but the latest round of fears was spawned by crazed snipers, not al-Qaeda operatives.

The worries that we bring to this annual celebration of hearth, home and family are blissfully prosaic. Has anyone basted the turkey in the last five minutes? Do you think there is enough stuffing? How can we put the pies in the oven when the turkey is not done? Why did I eat so much? Where's the Alka-Seltzer?

Few families will lift a glass to toast their good fortune that a container ship has not pulled into port carrying a hidden nuclear device. It does not seem very festive to celebrate a year without smallpox or the return of the anthrax killer. We are far more likely to curse the indignities of airport security then to hail the return of safe skies. It is weird to feel grateful that the Capitol, the Empire State Building, the Sears Tower and the Golden Gate Bridge are still standing tall and majestic.

America may be at war with Iraq in a few months, but talk of Saddam is not apt to haunt most holiday tables. Instead, we will chatter about issues of the moment: J-Lo's engagement, pro football, the new James Bond movie and the life expectancy of favorite members of the cast of The Sopranos. If there is a serious conversational interlude, the topic will probably be the direction of the stock market rather than the whereabouts of Osama.

Are we living in a fool's paradise, blind to the risks that America still faces? No more so than we were during the Cold War when any strategic miscalculation could trigger nuclear disaster. In fact, though asserting this seems akin to whistling past a graveyard, we are presumably far safer. Terrorist bands and rogue nations are indeed ruthless in their contempt for civilian casualties, but today's adversaries fortunately are not equipped with the bristling nuclear arsenal of the Soviet Union. Having endured and prospered for half a century in the shadow of the bomb, it would be irrational to cower in the face of al-Qaeda.

If there is a larger reason for thanksgiving beyond personal health and safety, it is that we have endured an unprecedented terrorist assault with our liberties intact. Granted, there are grounds for concern in the government's penchant for secret trials and detentions, not to mention the Pentagon's ill-conceived plans to riffle through our credit-card statements and phone bills in the hunt for terrorists. Few among us want to relinquish our cherished freedoms to an all-powerful national security state.

No holiday rivals Thanksgiving in its simple rituals of family and food. So let's celebrate without undue fretting about the latest chilling prophesies from government officials. May the most serious threat that we face during this festive weekend be indigestion.